Anime: 3x3 Eyes: Seima Densetsu

3x3 Eyes Seima Densetsu

So what now, Jack Sparrow? Are we to be two immortals locked in an epic battle until Judgment Day and trumpets sound?
--Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Abstract: It's been four years since the events of the first OVA. Pai lost her memory, Yakumo is now a hero, and the baddies are still just as incompetent at resurrecting Lord Whatshisname. The show has a pretty good plot and artwork, but the twist ending ruins all character development. A must watch for anyone interested in the backstory of the Sanjiyan, but don't expect to see any of the series long running conflicts to be resolved. Final Grade: B-

Genre: Dark Fantasy
Content: Excessive Blood/Nudity

Reasons to Watch: Yakumo is cool now; Great side characters; Hayashibara Megumi's voice acting
Reasons not to Watch: Nothing gets resolved; Character development is ruined

Plot: 7
Four years have passed since the rather unsatisfying end of the first OVAs. Yakumo has spent the time leveling up and searching for Pai. When he finally finds her against, he is shocked to discover the horrifying truth—the writers used the lamest possible plot device and gave Pai amnesia. But wait—this is a bit different that the standard writer's block amnesia. The amnesia hides a stunning twist, which gives quite a bit of drama and tension to the endgame. And in the beginning of the story, it allows for the characters to be reintroduced and the setting reestablished. The twist ending causes massive problems for character development, but it works well with the plot. As for the episodes, the first one has some serious pacing problems,: the fight with the dolls takes way too much time and is rather uninteresting. The dolls pose no real threat to our heroes or to the humans they posses, and it takes away time from the meat of the story, the journey to the Sanjiyan homeland. They do provide a nice chance for Yakumo to show off his new powers, but really this plot line should have been shortened and the China part extended. The second episode starts off with a lot fast paced action, and it is quite good. It is here that we finally see the Sanjiyan version of Pai, who also has lost her memory. Her violent, destructive rampage is a callback to the best parts of the first OVAs, and for the first time Pai really feels like Pai. (And this un-Pai Pai is probably done on purpose, which makes the director, Takenouchi Kazuhisa a sort of genius here). Oddly enough, Mr. Takenouchi didn't direct the third OVA, it was one Sayama Kiyoko, who body of work leans to the melodramatic. And the third episode had melodramatic in spades. First of all, the second episode ended with a cliffhanger than was clumsily resolved at the start of the third. I can understand how the changing of directors would have affected the flow between episodes, but just because I can understand doesn't mean I will forgive. The third episode had some fairly dramatic twists and turns, but there was one plot hole, and it was bigger than the Chinese Stereotype Monster's stomach portal. Why did Benares give Pai the means to defeat him? We're looking at levels of Bond Villain Stupidity here. There are was to rationalize it, like Benares is immortal, he never believed Pai would sacrifice so much, etc, but a good storyline should not need rationalization to work! Anyway, the plot holds itself together better than could be expected. While a sequel, the story is done well enough that a person new to the series could watch it and enjoy as much as someone that knows the source material. However, it does not give a complete story. What we learn of Pai serves to only raise more questions that answers, and none of the big conflicts (Pai vs. Kaiyanwang, Pai and Yakumo's relationship, Pai vs alternate personality) get resolved. In the end, this feels like a side story to a main event we never get to see. Grade: B

Art: 8
The artwork has cleaned up and the characters look less like crap, and overall, it's it would be a pretty good looking show for a for a early nineties OVA. Too bad it was released in '95. There were some odd moments in animation, especially when drawing Pai's hands or legs, and I still can't figure out why the doll monster had nipples. Speaking of nipples, there are a lot of unclothed monsters running about but we only get tantalizing glimpses of Pai, the only one worth seeing. The character designs are as crazy as ever, and there is no better example as the aged monk Tinzin. The fight scenes in the first two episodes are pretty good, although not outstanding, but the third episode blows them away. The scene where Yakumo and MacDonald fight the Chinese Stereotype Monster has some really great (and expensive) animation, and who could forget the flashback where we see Pai melt Benares' face right off his skull. I also like Yakumo's hobo outfits, as he looks the part of the epic hero much more than in the previous edition. The lack of any ED animation is a downer, though. Grade: B+

Sound: 7
3x3 Eyes stars one of the greatest voice actress to ever grace the industry. The legendary Hayashibara Megumi lends her talents to the voice of Pai and her alternate personality Sanjiyan. What makes Ms. Hayashibara so great is how she can do so many different voices. Listening to her switch between the voices of Pai and Sanjiyan is doubly impressive given how different they are in tone and emotion. Like most of her characters, Ms. Hayashibara gives her characters life, to the point you can't imagine them without her voice. Yakumo is voiced by Tsujitani Kouji, and he does great job with the emotional and action scenes. The highly skilled journeyman Yara Yuusaku does a wonderfully evil job as Choukai, the Chinese Stereotype Monster. His amazing cackling laugh gives a relatively uninteresting character a real and evil personality. And Ohtsuka Houchu, the voice of Jake MacDonald, gives a great supporting cast another strong performance. I particularly enjoyed his random English curses. I've never heard a Japanese voice actor drop a more convincing 'Jesus!' than him. But the as good as the voice acting is, the music is not. There is no OP, and the ED is a simple instrumental. And there is a glaring lack of background music. It's in there, but it isn't used enough. The epic final battle has almost no music, and it is very noticeable when the characters aren't talking. Grade: B

Characters: 4
The plot twist might work well in creating a strong plot, but it complete destroys all character development. In fact, character development has regressed from the first OVA. I have the same problem with Clannad After Story. If, after great emotional development, something causes the characters to reset to a earlier state, then all that great emotional development didn't actually happen. So some rather strong chemistry and development between Pai and Yakumo is tossed out the window, and we have to start all over again. So with the main characters neutralized, it is up to the strong supporting cast of new characters to carry the load. They perform admirably, but in the end they are still supporting cast, and can not save the show. The monk Tinzin is a great character (the wizened old monk is a common trope, but is so rarely executed well), that mets his fate all to soon. The treasure hunter Jake MacDonald is another great character, an arrogant jerk that you can't help love, but he never has enough scenes to really shine. The side villains are all pretty good, and they seem far more threatening than Benares, who just stands there and pontificates until things get serious. And the character of Ran Pao Pao was so cliché that she was straight out of a disney movie, if you overlook the whole naked part. Grade: C-

Value: 6
Watchability: Apart from a too slow fight scene in the first episode, have a rather smooth delivery and are quite easy to watch. The drama is pretty gripping and it keeps you on your toes. There is quite a lot of information revealed about Pai's past and the history of the Sanjiyan, and it is a must see for anyone who wanted more after the first OVA. It, however, is less than satisfying for those people looking for closure; the story is still very incomplete and lacks any conflict resolution. Grade: B
Re-watchability: While some of the fight scenes are strong enough to warrant a second look, the big twist in the end spoils most of the show's re-watchability. As the case in most shows with ending like this, once you learn what happens, there is little gained in watching the show again. And the nature of the twist means there is little reason to rewatch this show. Grade: C-
Historical Value: 3x3 Eyes is a franchise that never really broke through. The English translations of the manga failed to even get close to the 40 volumes released in Japan, and the franchise never got that TV series it so richly deserved. There is a pretty good story here, but it seems to be more of a missed opportunity than anything else. Grade: C+

Enjoyment: 8
I love the 3x3 Eyes universe. But both this OVA and it's predecessor failed to live up to it's potential. No conflicts are resolved, no development happens, and more questions are raised than answers. It is an imperfect telling of an incomplete story, but I am glad it exists. It many have not been everything I wanted, but it was something that was needed after the first OVA. We see too little into this universe, but what I do see is enough to keep me searching for more. Grade: B+

Errata:
While it is neigh impossible to review a sequel without comparing it to the previous version, I tried my best to review Seima Densetsu on it's own merits. Hearing Hayashibara Megumi voice act subliminally made me want to go watch Slayers. The opening quote comes from the best Pirates movie. That scene with the immortalized Barbossa and Jack Sparrow fighting, unable to kill each other, kept going through my mind as I watched the immortal Yakumo and Benares duke it out. I watched this with the Japanese Blue-Ray remastered edition. Unfortunately, my records don't show who did the subs. All reviews are done independent of the original format or other adaptions.

Final Grade: B-

What I'm going to write here is of course mainly a review of 3x3 eyes 2, but since it's a direct continuation of the first OVA I'm gonna refer to that one as well.

First the more technical details. This Anime, produced in 1995 could probably have been drawn a bit better. The characters lack detail, and so does the rest of the world for that matter. Even though it sets a fitting mood, you can say the anime is drawn in 500 shades of dark blue and grey. Still, it's a bit nicer to watch than the prequel where the combat scenes were so poorly animated that they were completely confusing. Now it's possible to see what's going on and the character movement is also much nicer.

The sound is about the same as in OVA 1, not very realistic and the music is mainly reused.

Now to the story. I watched the first OVA, and at first I found the story pretty uninteresting and annoying that Pai and her other personality, the Sanjiyan were so completely different. And how could Yakumo possibly care for (love) someone that would change personality every now and then. And furthermore Pai didn't even seem to know about her other self, so every time she had used her powers she would not be able to remember what had been happening.

Now, the initial goal was for Pai was to become human. She had been searching forever for Yakomu to achieve this goal, let's keep this in mind. They go through many dangers on their mission, but are unable to complete it; however in the end of OVA 1 we see Pai communicating with her other self and we see the final showdown between her and the evil Wu, so this gives alot of hope for the continuation in the second OVA.

However where the story is supposed to have moved forward, we are suddenly thrown even further back than where it all began. Now, Pai has her memory sealed, so the story has changed into finding a cure for this magically enforced amnesia. I don't want to reveal too many details, but I can tell this much: If you're expecting to get the answers to all the questions that rise in the first OVA, you're going to be sadly disappointed, at best you will find that at the very end the story is back to status quo. And that about wraps up 3x3 eyes; a whole series of events that in the end lead to nothing. But don't give completely up, there is still lots of action, interesting encounters, and a few surprising plot twists nontheless, so you may want to try this out after all :)

As soon as 3x3 Eyes Immortals end, you'll notice that it's some sort of 'To be continued', and that's when this series kicks in.

A few years after 3x3 eyes Immortals ends, the story gets picked up in the current anime. Again, the animation is aged and not great, but the atmosphere and art is still the same and therefor I will rate it the same way as the prequel.

While the story in the prequel evolved in and around the city, this time the scenery will be more exotic, when they go off and search the earth to find their target. With that, there are also different characters introduced which fortunately have better development.
The story sometimes seems to become a sort of Indiana Jones-lookalike, but it never becomes boring nor does it become too funny. In fact, this sequel is way more serious than the prequel and also has more story.
Again, they stick pretty close to the manga with only altering a few things to make sure it will all be finished instead of leaving some subplots open. Which is a good thing, imho.

This story is a bit more confusing though, however, with very little effort it's still possible to understand everything.

When you thought the prequel was a bit boring, this one won't let you down, as they go underground and visit more strange places. Overall these 3 episodes are better than the prequel, making this series a bit more worth watching.